Buying Options

The Pur Pitcher Replacement Filter with Lead Reduction and basic Pitcher Filter have, by far, the most extensive certifications of any pitcher filters we researched and they have been rigorously proven to remove a greater number and range of potential water contaminants than their competitors. They’re also competitively priced and easy to find—strong points because, like all pitcher filters, they have to be replaced regularly. We also preferred the design of the Pur Classic 11-Cup Pitcher, with its ergonomic grip, a flip-top lid that you can fill one-handed, and a high-volume fill tank that reduces trips to the faucet. The drawback: The filters can be slow, often averaging more than 10 minutes to fully refill an 11-cup pitcher.

Buying Options

Brita’s best-certified filter, the Longlast, has fewer certifications than Pur’s filters but it is also rated to perform for 120 gallons (or six months)—three times the rated lifespan of most other filters, including the Pur filters and Brita’s own basic Pitcher and Dispenser Filter. That makes it competitive on cost, despite its higher per-filter price. However, sediment-rich water can clog its particulate filtration design, so for some people, it doesn’t actually last six months. The Brita Pitcher and Dispenser Filters cost less and clog less often but they have far fewer certifications than the Longlast or Pur’s filters. Among Brita’s many pitchers, the iconic 10-cup Everyday is our favorite for its easy-to-clean design. But its handle is less comfortable than the Pur Classic’s, and filling it means removing the lid entirely, a two-hand operation.

Why you should trust us

I have been testing water filters for Wirecutter since 2016. In my reporting, I’ve spoken at length with filter-certification organizations to understand how their testing is conducted. And I’ve spoken with representatives of multiple water-filter manufacturers, including Pur brand manager Meredith Talbot and Brita associate research fellow Jon McDonald, to investigate their claims. I’ve also gone hands-on with several filters and pitchers, because overall liveability and user-friendliness are important in a device you’ll use multiple times a day.

John Holecek, a former NOAA scientist, researched and wrote earlier versions of this guide, conducted his own tests, and commissioned further independent tests.

Who this is for

This guide is for people who want a pitcher-type water filter—the kind you fill from the tap and keep in your fridge. The other common methods of filtering tap water are plumbed in, including faucet-mounted, fridge, and under-sink filters.

Pitcher-type filters’ chief advantages are low cost and ease of use. Using them is as simple as filling a jug. Most cost under $40 up front and usually can be maintained at under $10 every two months per replacement filter.

Pitcher-type water filters’ disadvantage is that because they use gravity rather than water pressure to force water through, they have to be less dense than plumbed-in filters. That means they generally are effective on a smaller range of potential contaminants and also take longer to filter water.

If you have a known contamination issue in your home’s water, all of these are only a temporary and limited solution. A permanent fix may require installing a whole-house filtration system to treat not just drinking water but also bathing and cooking water.

Do you need a water filter?

Unfortunately there’s no universal answer to if you need a water filter. In the United States, public water supplies are regulated by the EPA under the Clean Water Act, and water leaving a public water-treatment plant must meet strict quality standards. But not all potential contaminants are regulated. As well, contaminants can enter the water after it leaves the treatment plant, by infiltrating leaky pipes or by leaching out of some pipes’ interior walls. And water treatments done (or overlooked) at the plant can exacerbate leaching in pipes downstream—as happened in Flint, Michigan.

Broadly speaking, the US water supply is considered safe. To know exactly what’s in your supplier’s water when it leaves the plant, you can usually find your local supplier’s EPA-mandated Consumer Confidence Report online; if not, all public water suppliers are required to give you their CCR upon request. But because of potential downstream contamination, the only way to know for certain what’s in your home’s water is to pay a local water-quality lab to test it.

As a rule of thumb: The older your home or community is, the greater the risk of downstream contamination. The EPA says that “homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead pipes, fixtures and solder”—once-common older materials don’t meet current codes. Age also brings an increased likelihood of legacy groundwater pollution from pre-regulation industry, which can be a risk, especially when combined with age-related degradation of underground plumbing.

How we picked: Filters

To ensure that we recommend only trustworthy filters, we have always insisted that our picks be certified to the industry standard: ANSI/NSF. The American National Standards Institute and NSF International are private, nonprofit organizations that, working in concert with the EPA and other experts, establish strict quality standards and testing protocols for thousands of products, including water filters. The two main certifying labs for water filters are NSF International itself and the Water Quality Association (WQA). Both are fully accredited in North America by ANSI and the Standards Council of Canada to do ANSI/NSF certification testing, and both must adhere to the exact same testing standards and protocols. Filters can meet the certification standard only after being pushed well beyond their expected lifespan, using prepared “challenge” samples that are far more polluted than most tap water.

We limited our scope to filters with, at minimum, certification under the two main standards—Standard 42 and Standard 53—which respectively cover chlorine and other bad-tasting “aesthetic” contaminants and organic compounds and heavy metals. A relatively new standard, 401, covers “emerging contaminants” like pharmaceuticals that are increasingly found in US water, and we gave extra weight to filters with this certification.

Beyond this, we looked for:

Misleading claims: Unfortunately, many filter makers use phrases like “independently tested to ANSI/NSF standards” to imply that they’re certified. But “independently tested to” and “certified” aren’t the same thing; the former usually means a filter maker had its testing done by a non-certifying lab. All of the filters we recommend are certified by NSF or WQA.

Total ANSI/NSF certifications: More is better. There are scores of potential water contaminants, and filters must be tested and certified for each one. (That is, the fact that a filter is certified under a given ANSI/NSF standard—42, 53, 401—doesn’t tell you specifically which contaminants it’s actually certified for.) Certification is done on a strict pass/fail basis; there are no certifications for “pretty good” or “close enough.”

Cost-competitiveness: Filters have to be replaced regularly, usually every two months/40 gallons, though there are exceptions. So cost-per-filter and the replacement schedule give a sense of long-term cost-competitiveness.

Wide availability: We especially wanted our recommended replacement filters to be easy to find for the foreseeable future.

Reputation and reviews: We weighed the trends we found in filters’ owner reviews—both positive and negative—to get a fuller picture of how they perform, beyond their certification statistics and our own experience.
After reviewing dozens of filters, these criteria led us to recommend filters by Pur and Brita—which offer the best combination of ANSI/NSF certifications, price, and availability—and to dismiss several other competitors.

How we picked: Pitchers

We limited our search to pitchers in the popular 10- to 11-cup range. Most companies also offer smaller pitchers for folks who don’t need a full-size model. And most also offer larger dispensers—an alternative worth considering for households going through a lot of water, as dispensers’ higher volume and easy-to-use spigot make them more family-friendly. We are working on a standalone guide to the best dispenser options.

Then we compared design details, including handle style and comfort, ease of installing and replacing filters, how much space the pitchers took up in the fridge, and the volume ratio of the upper fill tank to the lower “filtered” tank (the higher the ratio, the better, because you get more filtered water from each trip to the faucet).

We did not prioritize pitchers with battery-powered usage meters or filter-replacement reminders. We find it easier and more effective to set a digital calendar reminder, or to use the included stick-on scheduling calendars that you mark with a Sharpie.

How we tested

In 2016, we conducted several tests of our own on multiple filters, including the Pur Filter Pitcher and Brita Basic, to compare our results against ANSI/NSF certifications and manufacturer claims. In his lab, John Holecek measured their removal of chlorine, which has a big impact on water’s taste and smell, and their ability to remove “total dissolved solids”—basically, mineral salts and organic matter. For our top two picks—which included the Pur Pitcher Filter—we contracted an independent test for lead removal, using a much more lead-contaminated solution than NSF calls for in its certification protocol.

Our main takeaway from testing was that ANSI/NSF certification is a reliable measure of a filter’s performance. That’s not surprising given the extreme rigor of the certification testing. Since then we have relied on ANSI/NSF certifications, rather than our own limited testing, to select our competitors.

In 2018 we conducted tests on the popular Big Berkey water-filter system, which is not ANSI/NSF certified but claims to have been extensively tested to ANSI/NSF standards. That experience further cemented our insistence on true ANSI/NSF certifications and our distrust of “tested to ANSI/NSF” claims.

Our tests since, including this year, have focused on real-world usability and the kinds of practical features and drawbacks that become apparent when you’re living with these products.

The heart of any water-filter system are the filters themselves, so let’s start with them.

Pur’s Replacement Filter with Lead Reduction (model number PPF951K) is ANSI/NSF certified for 23 contaminants, including lead; the Brita Longlast, its nearest competitor, is certified for 12. The Pur Lead Reduction’s certifications include lead, of course. They also include four “aesthetic” ANSI/NSF Standard 42 contaminants that affect water taste, especially chlorine; 10 ANSI/NSF Standard 53 contaminants (encompassing organic compounds including pesticides, and heavy metals including mercury and cadmium), and eight ANSI/NSF Standard 401 “emerging contaminants” that are increasingly found in US water supplies (including BPA and estrone, a form of the human hormone estrogen).

The Pur Pitcher Replacement Filter with Lead Reduction (left) is distinguished from the Pur Pitcher Filter (right) by its translucent white cap. Photo: Sarah Kobos

If you know you don’t have a lead issue, you might prefer the basic Pur Pitcher Filter (model number CRF-950Z). It costs about 25 percent less per filter, uses the same charcoal-and-ion-exchange-resin main filter (but lacks the Lead Reduction’s additional “electro-adhesive” filter, which deals with metals that get past the ion-exchange resin), and is certified for the same 22 contaminants other than lead.

Pur’s Lead Reduction filter and Pitcher Filter are both rated to last for 40 gallons or two months between replacement. At six filter replacements per year, the Lead Reduction will cost about $50 per year (about $8.67 per filter, in a three-pack that averages $26). The Pur Pitcher Filter will cost about $40 (about $6.67 per filter, in a six-pack that averages $40).

Both use the same basic technology, which is common to most filters, to remove contaminants from water. Granules of activated charcoal adsorb (bind) organic compounds, and an ion-exchange resin selectively captures toxic heavy metals, kicking out benign light metals like sodium and potassium into the water the process. A Pur representative told us in an interview that to achieve its lead certification the Lead Reduction filter has an additional “electro-adhesive” paper filter that sits below the main activated-charcoal and ion-exchange resin filter. Much like static cling making your socks stick together, the filter uses an opposing electrical charge to capture dissolved metals that its ion-exchange resin missed.

In addition to superior certifications, the Pur filters offer a significant design advantage over Brita’s filters: You really can’t install them incorrectly. The Pur filters are molded with a pair of stubby pins that help you line them up properly during installation. Brita’s filters also help you line them up properly, via a tongue-and-groove design. But Pur’s filters add second and third physical indications of proper installation—push them down, then make a quarter-turn to lock them in place. If you don’t take those steps, the filters slightly pop back up, making it clear when they’re not installed correctly.

The Pur Classic’s thumb-flip lid leaves your other hand free to turn on the tap water when refilling. Photo: Sarah Kobos

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The Pur Classic 11-Cup Pitcher has a number of design details that make it more pleasant to use than the Brita Everyday pitcher. Its handle is more comfortable and secure in the hand, thanks to a molded, convex grip that gives all of your fingers firm purchase. The Pur has a flip-up cover that opens with a press of the thumb on your grip hand, leaving your other hand free to operate the faucet when refilling; some competitors’ lids, including the Brita Everyday pitcher’s, must be completely removed for refilling, so both of your hands are occupied. And the Pur requires fewer trips to the sink because its larger upper tank delivers more filtered water per refill: 64 ounces of its 92-ounce capacity. The Brita Everyday delivers 51 ounces of its 92-ounce capacity per refill. (We directly measured them, proving they’re equal, in spite of Pur’s and Brita’s 11-cup and 10-cup ratings.)

Flaws but not dealbreakers

These filters can work slowly. Pur told us that the basic Pitcher Filter would take about six minutes to filter a refill of the 11-cup Classic pitcher, and that the Lead Reduction filter would take 10 to 11 minutes. In our tests, we averaged a little over 13 minutes for each filter. The Brita Pitcher and Dispenser and Longlast filters proved much faster: each five minutes or so on a similarly sized pitcher (10 cups versus 11). If a couple of pitcher refills are all you need in a day, the Pur’s slower rate is manageable but annoying. But in a more thirsty household, a larger dispenser—which we are covering in an upcoming guide—can be a better choice.

Clogging has been an issue with Pur’s filters due to fine bubbles getting stuck in the filter media and preventing water from passing through. In late 2018, the company added internal vents to both the Lead Reduction and the basic Pitcher Filter to help the bubbles escape. (Bubble clogs are common to pitcher filters; Brita has also responded to the issue by adding vents.) It’s too soon to tell if Pur’s vents really do reduce clogging: There are few owner reviews since the new models were released, and old inventory is still in stock at many retailers. We will continue to long-term test both Pur filters and keep an eye on owner reviews to see if the clogging issue persists.

The Classic pitcher can be hard to squeeze into a crowded fridge because it is roughly square in cross-section—almost as wide as deep, like a gallon jug of milk. It’s harder to store than the more rectangular, thinner-but-deeper Brita Everyday and Pur Ultimate. On the other hand, the Classic’s shape puts less strain on your wrist when lifting.

The Longlast is notable for its exceptionally high filtration capacity: It’s rated for 120 gallons or 6 months, three times the 40-gallon/two-month capacity of most pour-through filters, including both Pur filters. In theory that means you’ll use just two Longlasts a year instead of six—and generate that much less trash—for about $20 less than the annual cost of the Pur Lead Reduction and about $10 less than the annual cost of the basic Pur Pitcher Filter.

The basic Brita Pitcher and Dispenser filter is good but is certified for fewer contaminants than other filters we recommend. Photo: Sarah Kobos

Brita’s Longlast filter lasts three times longer than most filters, but sediment-rich water can clog it. Photo: Sarah Kobos

The basic Brita Pitcher and Dispenser filter is good but is certified for fewer contaminants than other filters we recommend. Photo: Sarah Kobos

Brita’s Longlast filter lasts three times longer than most filters, but sediment-rich water can clog it. Photo: Sarah Kobos

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However, many Longlast owners, including many Wirecutter readers and several staffers, have experienced severe clogging issues with the Longlast. Their filters have quickly slowed to a trickle or completely stopped working, sometimes within a few weeks of being installed. That’s far short of their six-month rating, and it’s doubly exasperating because Longlast filters are by far the most expensive of those we recommend: about $14.50 each, versus about $8.67 for next most expensive, the Pur Lead Reduction.

Just as Pur has done with its filters, Brita has added vents to the Longlast to help reduce bubble clogs. But in speaking with a Brita engineer, we learned that the Longlast will clog more rapidly in any home with sediment-rich water, because it chiefly works by particulate filtration instead of adsorption and ion-exchange, like the Pur filters, the basic Brita Pitcher and Dispenser filter, and most other pitcher filters. (They largely remove contaminants by chemical processes; the Longlast largely removes them physically.) If you know or suspect your water is sediment-rich, switching to a Brita Pitcher and Dispenser filter or either Pur filter may help. For its part, Brita says only 1 percent of Longlast owners experience severe clogging. We will continue to long-term test the Longlast to see if we continue to get clogging issues.

Finally, there’s the basic Brita Pitcher and Dispenser filter. With only six ANSI/NSF certifications (including three “aesthetic” contaminants, three heavy metals but not lead, and no organic compounds or emerging contaminants), it’s not nearly as well-certified as the Longlast or either Pur filter. But if you know your tap water is of good quality, it’s an inexpensive (about $25 for a six-pack, which is enough for a year’s replacements), fast, and reliable filter that can improve the water’s taste.

In contrast to Pur’s filters, which clearly indicate when they’ve been installed incorrectly, installing Brita’s filter is rather easy to mess up.They initially drop into place solidly, so they feel right. But in fact they need an additional shove to fully seat them. If you don’t give that shove, unfiltered water may leak down the filter’s sides when you fill the upper tray—meaning your “filtered” water actually isn’t.

The Brita’s lift-off lid means you need two hands to get it ready for a refill; the Pur Classic pitcher’s thumb-flip lid leaves your other hand free to open the tap. Photo: Sarah Kobos

The Brita Everyday pitcher, billed as having a 10-cup capacity, in fact holds 11½ cups (92 ounces), the same as the Pur Classic “11-Cup” Pitcher. But on a number of other points, the Brita Everyday comes up short of the Pur Classic. It delivers less water per refill: 6½ cups (51 ounces) versus 8 cups (64 ounces), so you’ll wind up taking more trips to the sink. And where the Pur has a thumb-flip lid above the handle that leaves your other hand free to run the faucet, the Brita’s entire lid has to be removed before you can refill the pitcher—a two-handed job. Lastly, the pitcher’s handle is less comfortable and stable in the hand, because its concave shape curves away from your fingers, leaving only your index and pinkie fingers to do all the work.

Though they have the same overall capacity, a smaller upper reservoir means the Brita Everyday (left) filters less water per refill than the Pur Classic. Photo: Sarah Kobos

The Everyday comes with a Brita Pitcher and Dispenser Filter, but also fits Longlast filters—you’ll just have to order those separately. Brita offers more than a dozen other pitchers and dispensers, in various sizes and designs, that fit both filters. Note, however, that Brita’s three Stream pitchers use a different filter; the Brita Pitcher and Dispenser and Longlast filters won’t fit them.

The competition

Filters

The Clear2O filters (the CWF50X and GRF20X, where “X” designates number of filters in the pack) are not certified to ANSI/NSF standards. Rather, Clear2O describes them as having been “independently tested on over 200 contaminants to achieve water industry 42 and 53 standards for reduction of Chlorine, Heavy Metals, Cysts, VOC, & Other contaminants.” That’s not the same thing, and although we have no reason to doubt the claim, we require certification.

The Soma Filter is certified to ANSI/NSF Standard 42 for taste and ANSI/NSF 53 for copper, cadmium, and mercury. That’s identical to the Brita Pitcher and Dispenser filter, but the Soma costs more than twice as much. Brita’s Longlast and both Pur filters have more certifications under 42 and 53, and add 401 certifications that the Soma completely lacks. The Longlast is not much pricier and is rated to 120 versus 40 gallons; the Pur filters are cheaper and rated to the same 40 gallons as the Soma.

The ZeroWater pitcher filter is ANSI/NSF certified for six total contaminants under standards 42 and 53, including lead. But its capacity is only 15 gallons, versus 40 or more gallons for all of the filters we recommend. That fact only looks worse when you consider the cost of a ZeroWater filter: about $15. Both Pur and Brita do it for a fraction of the cost. ZeroWater’s most prominent claim is that its filters remove 100 percent of “total dissolved solids” in water—basically, minerals. Tests we conducted in 2016 confirmed that claim—but it’s not necessarily a good thing. According to the World Health Organization (PDF), higher TDS in drinking water is associated with lower incidence of cancer and heart disease, and as the WHO says, “Water with extremely low concentrations of TDS may also be unacceptable because of its flat, insipid taste.”

The Brita Stream filter removes only chlorine taste and odor; it is not certified to remove any organic compounds or heavy metals under ANSI/NSF Standard 53 and so does not meet our requirements. It fits only in Brita’s three Stream pitchers, not in the Everyday or any of Brita’s other pitchers.

Mavea, maker of a former recommended pitcher and filter, no longer operates in North America.

Pitchers

The Pur Ultimate pitcher lacks the Classic’s comfortable handle and has a much smaller fill tank, at 46 ounces (versus 64 for the Classic) of the pitcher’s 92-ounce capacity, so you’ll have to fill it more often.

Pur offers a 7-cup version of its pitcher, which also lacks the Classic’s ergonomic handle and shaves about 2 inches off the footprint’s length and width, compared with the Classic. Saving space sounds nice, but this smaller design means more frequent faucet visits, and slow filtration can be even more frustrating on a smaller water volume.

Pur makes an 18-cup dispenser, which is outside the scope of this guide but should be a strong contender in an upcoming guide to water dispensers. This also works with both Pur filters.

The Brita Grand pitcher fits both the Longlast and Pitcher and Dispenser filters, like the Everyday does, but comes in multiple colors, versus the Everyday’s plain white. It has a thumb-flip lid for one-handed filling, a feature we liked on the Pur Classic that the Everyday lacks. But the Grand also has a molded-in “pipe” inside the fill-hole, whose shape creates tight crannies that are harder to clean than the Everyday’s simple design. And it has the same concave handle that makes the Everyday harder to grasp than the Pur Classic.
The Brita Stream pitchers don’t fit the brand’s Longlast or Pitcher and Dispenser filters, but instead use a different filter that only reduces chlorine taste and odor. We require additional Standard 53 certification (encompassing organic compounds and heavy metals) for the filters—and by extension the pitchers—we recommend.

The Soma Pitcher is stylish, but we found it tricky to pull apart for cleaning, and its wide spout made for problems when we needed to pour with precision (such as filling a drinking bottle).

We found the ZeroWater ZP-010 pitcher extremely difficult to use because the lid had a tight fit and no lip to push on, making the lid hard to remove for filling; instead, you must squeeze the tip of the lid tightly and rely on a friction grip to get it open. When trying to pour out the last cupful of water, we repeatedly had problems with the filter and fill housing falling out and onto our hands, the glass, or the counter.

Wirecutter is a list of wonderful things by Brian Lam and friends, founded in 2011 and a part of The New York Times Company since 2016. Have a question? Just ask.